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I read a long and elaborate treatise last week on the subject of talk therapy being a dying mechanism for healing. While the author’s ideas had some merit, I wondered if it were true. Was his idea prompted by our pushing need to rush, rush, rush?  Our population moves now with a speed that outpaces life itself. The other day a client looked wistful and began to breathe more slowly as we spoke of watching Amish Mennonites plod along the edge of country roads in horse-drawn carriages across the center of America,  She described her experience and I found myself drawn to my own pictoral memories of such an event. Before I knew it we were both smiling, not only in recognition of similar memories, but at the opportunity to slow down for our recollection of deliberate unhurriedness.

But I digress, and who am I not to finish the task at hand (and hurry to get it done at the same time?) To act on a belief that talk therapy is dying would rob us of being intently listened to, an event that is all too rare in everyday life. Mad, sad, glad or afraid, people want to be acknowledged for their feelings. And I have often quoted Shakespeare’s line “the eye sees not itself, but by reflection in some other things.” (Julius Caesar) which I take to mean that we are better defined through the eyes of others; that is, we need reflection from others in order to see who we are. Best friends mean well, but often rush to rescue with solutions to our sad or afraid feelings. Acquaintances may feel uncomfortable receiving our indications that we need a backboard to bounce our discouraged ball against. Therapists are in business to provide a listening ear, without judging or solutions. So no, I don’t think “talk therapy” will die.

But the world of psychotherapy cannot help but stay current with the times because we all look to “newer and better.”An example is a Smartphone like a Blackberry replacing a conventional cell phone. We apply the same “toss and replace” attitude toward many things, often without thinking.  And now in therapy there are faster modes that clients ask for. EMDR is one. Another is  ”Energy Psychology,” a speedy but beneficial and fairly recent treatment that clients can take home after a couple sessions and use to their benefit any time, any place. That one is an almost-instant feel- better mechanism. It involves learning certain places to tap on the body to relieve stress, anxiety, depression. It is quick and thorough. Even so, it doesn’t replace our basic human need to be listened to. That will always be around.

Next month: As an Energy Therapy, what is EFT? How does it work?

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

That novel, written in the 40’s by Thomas Wolfe, told the reader “you can’t go back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time.” He hit a chord in the American reader. Who of us hasn’t wanted to recapture the innocence and unbridled joy of days long ago?

It’s no different with marriages or long-term partnerships. Whether it be overt or hidden, couples generally seek counseling with a similar agenda. They want to return to the happiness they once cherished. The fantasy is that when they do, all will be well again.  Whether they believe that goal can be achieved or not, it is still the hoped-for ambition.

The trouble is, Thomas Wolfe was right. The happiness of long ago blossomed at the time, spreading soft scented aromas of rose and gardenia. Since then, though, life has progressed, people have changed. George looks across the kitchen table at Maud and says to himself, “where is the girl who set me on fire with her slow, sexy glances and her lilting laughter?” while Maud picks up her coffee cup, takes a sip and thinks, “Do I remember when this guy still had hair?”

Everything changes over time, including how each partner feels, thinks, looks, and behaves. When couples begin to consider therapy, it’s generally because each partner is in a lot of emotional pain. 1) They may want an intervention that will lead them to finding the happiness they once cherished. 2) They may have decided that their fights are providing the only emotional contact they have anymore, and they both secretly long for the emotional security they once enjoyed. 3) They may even agree that some form of change in their relationship has to come about if they are to stay together. (Limiting what they want to three items is unfair, for sure, but if you’ve read this far, you may have some identification with at least one of them.) Change is the goal in any case.

And so begins the search for the right therapist. The partner who carries the couples’ anxiety is usually the one who makes the initial phone call, while the other partner tends to stay silent, wanting to avoid any confrontation that may be necessary to evoke some kind of change. Underneath those two styles, anxious and avoidant, lies a similar goal, however, and that is to find some kind of security that will ground each of them in mutual love. If they can only return to the happiness they once cherished, all will be well. But it just doesn’t work that way. They’ve strayed too far from the home of their youths. Many of the old rules no longer apply, even though at least one partner longs for old ways. Relationships, like everything around us, evolve. When the couple resists that, when they do not recognize that the game they continue to stage still ends in bad feelings, both of them suffer.                                                        

If that sounds like I support a couple’s embracing new possibillities, well, that’s what therapy is all about. Based on what’s happened before, our couple can learn to make good use of their past by letting go of old pathways that no longer serve them. They can learn to connect in ways that bring creativity to the old boredom.  Whether they’ve become bald or frumpy, pushy or passive, they are still a pair. Wrapping their arms around each other is a healthy beginning. Wrapping their arms around change is a sign of success.

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

I am in the city of SMA, Mexico, living in a new perspective for a  month before returning to what was darkness in Portland when I left  there 15 days ago. How best to describe a colonial town that has  mushroomed in the last 20 yrs, what with the influx of “ex-pats” from  the US, Canada, and other parts of the world? The cobblestone streets  are the same as they were at my last visit 20 years ago, not quite so  treacherous because gaping holes have mostly been repaired, but still  mostly 12 walking steps wide. Traffic has increased, and riding in a cab  brings sensations of terror – vehicles and pedestrians stopping each  other or crossing paths swiftly but deftly. The cab drivers work  miracles with their manipulations around all that’s in front, beside,  and in back of them. I am staying in a house on a dead end street; the  cab I’m in drives in reverse to my door at 10 miles an hour, barely  missing the parked junked cars and any pedestrians who dare to venture  into the streets. 

But what goes on during the day and evenings is what I want to tell you  about. So far, I’ve participated in two healing circles, one mass  healing, and a Full Moon Ceremony.

San Miguel provides a Mecca for many avenues of healing, partly because  residents from North America find a way to work part time if that  describes their profession. Workshops and classes abound in meditation,  yoga, tai chi, the Enneagram, dream interpretation, Pilates, group  therapy, Holotropic breathwork, even the arts of drawing and poetry  writing. Alternative medicine is high on the healing list, as is acupuncture, stem-cell therapy, homeopathic, - and Chinese medicine is big  here, with many North Americans coming down for specific medical  treatment (and opting to stay.) 

The beauty of San Miguel lies in its color, manifested by the bright  yellow, orange, blue and pink walls of all the adobe home and store  fronts, by its pottery, crafts, plants, antiques, and wildly creative  masks. Mariachi music blends with jazz and salsa offered in  “El  Jardin,” at the center of town where people meet and chat or gather for  tours.

And now that I’ve described all that, I realize it’s time for me to go  there, not just talk about it!

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Why name a blog “Entitled To Joy,” you may ask. Well, a long story is behind that, too long for this blog. Suffice it to say I had a profound experience with a wonderful therapist. Based on my experience, she asked me this: “What do you think you learned from having gone through this?” I was in a contemplative mood, having just spent two hours with her. “That I am entitled to joy,” was my response.

 I was stunned by the simplicity of those few words and as I left her office I decided to carry them into everyday activities to test their truth. What I found was quite startling. As I listened to NPR that afternoon, I heard a senator say, ”It’s a mistake to think….” An hour later a friend complained, “There’s so much trouble in the world, we’re all overwhelmed…” As my day continued I began to be more alert to words people use to express themselves, words like “can’t”…”shame”…”try”…”refuse”… even “but.” They all have a negative tone. When you go through your day collecting them, as I did that day, you soon discover yourself swimming in a sea of this negativity.

 WAIT A MINUTE, I said out loud, startling my Corgi Teddy, who hummed in response. One of Americans’ most profound complaints (and that’s a negative word too!) is sad/bad when the clouds roll in looking as though they’ll stay all winter. I began to wonder just how much of a connection there is between the sea of negative words we encounter and this debilitating condition that costs us billions every year in psychopharmaceuticals, broken relationships and lost time at work.

 Well, it’s my opinion that the connection is HUGE. If a person’s self esteem is teetering toward sadness anyway, being enveloped in this every day sea of negativity must surely enhance those feelings, right? At the same time, finding a way to notice, then rise above the pessimistic words and thoughts that come at us each day might just offer us a needed lifeline.

• And what way might that be? It’s so simple, it’s astounding. AWARENESS. What will lead you to the rightful belief “I’m entitled to joy” is changing the way you hear and experience the world around you. Separate out the negative from the positive. Listen for those value-loaded words that drag you down and reverse them on contact. Celebrate the positive positions you see around you (“Thrive” says Kaiser Permanente; “You have blessed me. Thank you,” we hear on Oprah, who did a “Gratitude Weekend” contribution during Thanksgiving. And try looking at “disability” as one’s “ability” to navigate the world despite obstacles.)

 As the old song goes, “it depends on how you look at things…” and that is easy enough to say. Honing your awareness to view the world through a positive prism can be a new and positive different approach if you’ve been feeling sad for awhile. Keeping in mind that YOU ARE ENTITLED TO JOY will help. Besides, it’s your birthright!

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Not too long ago a young man came to my office for his first appointment.  He was nervous; this was his first visit to anyone in my profession.  However,  it soon became apparent he was feeling overwhelmed by an anxiety that far surpassed what he called “nervous”.  As he unraveled a story about pressure in his place of work,  his anxiety level increased measurably.  This anxiety had really taken hold of him, making him second guess every decision, and creating physical symptoms that forced him to take short cuts on his job.  As he talked about it, he panic increased even more.

Not too many months ago I would have talked with this man about the nature of his feelings, how long he’d experienced them, and what triggered the onset of them.    But this time was vastly different because I taught him an “energy therapy” I have learned to aid him in creating some distance between himself and the emotions that were debilitating him.  Based on the concept that energy is the fundamental organizing factor in the universe (consequently we humans are energetic beings) this “energy therapy” addresses the disruption in the energy system that negative emotions creates.  I taught this client to calm his fears by using a body-tapping technique related directly to the place in his body that carried his disturbance.  After he learned the technique, within a matter of minutes he was cleared of his anxiety.  Armed with the technique, he was free to use it at any time he felt that way again.  More important, he was able to get on with solving the work problem because his feelings stopped interfering with his performance.  In other words, for the issue he was presenting this day, his anxiety did not return again.

We all feel interrupted at times by fear, sadness, guilt and anger. Sometimes these emotions are brought on by our own negative thinking.  How much the emotions dictate our behavior depends on how much we feel inundated by them.  I am thankful there are now ways to heal “negative” emotions, rather than feel pushed around by them.

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Anger carries a contagion that affects us all. I don’t know of anyone whose heart doesn’t start beating faster when they encounter an angry person. And that person doesn’t even have to be angry with you. When you pass two people fighting with each other, chances are very good that you’ll walk away different from the way you were before you encountered them. A faster heartbeat, yes, and like as not you’ll make some comment in your head about what you’ve seen.

In public, anger is not an acceptable emotion to show unless someone else makes you feel that way. And that is a lesson we carefully teach our children: Someone else can make you feel. We believe that myth, have been carefully taught it’s true for all our lives. Of course, becoming angry happens so fast there is no time to be rational, to wonder How can someone else’s feelings affect me? Aren’t feelings inside a person? But who hasn’t encountered the weary mother, shopping at the end of the day, attempting to accomplish an exemplary task while beset with two or three children who all want either attention or the Cheerios on the top shelf? She strikes out at them verbally, first. They persist in their “misbehavior” (our term, not theirs). When she’s beyond her limits of patience and understanding, and after she’s checked out the aisle to make sure no one is looking, she grabs one of them by the arm and shakes him, hard. Then she admonishes him, no longer patient: “If you don’t stay still and quit that, I’m going to spank you!” In her mind, he made her angry. At that point, being rational has stepped out the door. In its place are higher blood pressure, a mask of rage, more shallow breathing and a fast-pumping heart. She has no awareness that she is feeling her own childhood anger resurfacing. The memory of how or why she was punished may not be forthcoming. In fact, what catapults her back to that childhood moment is the feeling.

Feelings link our past to a present occurrence, deny it though we may. When that happens, we search out someone to blame. The connection between the anger we feel and “Whose fault is it?” comes so fast we often don’t have time to know it’s our own anger. But it is our own. We are not responsible for the feelings of other people, any more than we are responsible for their actions. However, we are responsible for our own anger, our own actions. To begin disengaging from other people’s actions and feelings gives us our strength back. That is personal power.

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

With references to sudden and unexpected terrorist attacks anywhere in the world, it isn’t difficult to get anxious. Most of you have probably found your own good way to dispel the fear that thrusts itself into your consciousness when you encounter new items of disaster. But sometimes we don’t notice how anxiety affects us. Not knowing the source, we may get angry over trivial things, feel helpless where before we were pillars of strength. During these times we are often oblivious to our feelings until we get sick. This article is about how to address that anger/helplessness before it reaches the body and disables us.

When we feel helpless we accumulate more stress. The more nervous we become, the more our thoughts are filled with “what if’s”. We may toss and turn at night when we review the day’s headlines and begin imagining the worst. At times when we have no one near, we think. Our thoughts dwell on past events or future probabilities. Stress accumulates. Our muscles grow tight, our breath becomes shallow. With enough additions like this, we can become depressed.

How to find a way out of this maze without sticking our heads in the sand to block out everything? How to transcend the threat of terror around us in a way we can be watchful, not hyperalert? Here are several practical things you can do.

1.. Begin to measure your level of stress and fear: If a “1″ means you are unruffled and feel in charge of yourself, imagine that a “10″ marks you as very stressed and fearful. Ask yourself often, “Where am I now?” and give yourself a number. If it is high, place your right hand on your upper chest, finding the spot (by pressing) that is sensitive. Calm yourself by rubbing that area in a circular manner. Say at the same time: “Even though I am scared right now, I accept myself completely.” Say that phrase three times. This is a Here and Now exercise, meant to take you away from the There and Then. It will remind you that there is no tiger behind that tree in front of you at this time. It will bring your thinking back to the Now, a safe place.

2. Know that during these times we all need to draw comfort from each other. Make it a habit to check in with your friends or family, just to tell them you’re okay, but also to feel the comfort of knowing you are not alone. We’re all vulnerable at this time. Connections help us emotionally, and if a threat of terror or bioterror presents itself in our lives, we will need to rely on connections to help us through, just like the people who survived the Twin Towers relied on our police and fire fighters.

3. Take time to go inside. Begin with taking deep, cleansing breaths from your lower belly. With a finger in your navel, imagine a balloon expanding underneath your hand when you inhale. Hold that breath. Let the tension build up in your chest. Then let the air out as if it’s that balloon deflating. Repeat that process two more times. Then do an internal “check-in” to see where your body is feeling not okay. If you find a place, go there in your imagination and stay there, pushing all your usual thoughts away. Breathe into that space. Remain there a couple minutes, focusing on the sensation. Then ask yourself, “how am I now?”

Above all, pay attention to your reactions to news programs. If you find they are too disturbing for you, take a vacation from them. Look at the trees, the sky. Ground yourself in the stability you’ve counted on for years. (See also Autogenics)

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

The OREGONIAN has an article (derived from NEWSWEEK) in its March 1 edition titled “Frazzled, Fried and Fatigued”.  I read it avidly, since I feel that way sometimes and I see many people who feel that way quite often.  The toughest , most stressful occupation, it states, is that of the working mom.  Im not surprised.   Many of us have suspected that was true for years.  It was in the mid-80s that I first heard that the toughest thing a woman does all day is leave her house, pointing to how much responsibility we women take for the condition of the house.  (The OREGONIAN article cleverly says why that is stressful for women:  “Many women who are bringing home the bacon still are expected to fry and serve it, too”).   Bur fatigue hits all people, all ages.  It is reported to be among the top five reasons people call the doctor.  And the newspaper quotes the “Annals of Internal Medicine” report that a recent survey had 24% of people who complained of fatigue saying it lasted longer than two weeks.

It seems the boom of micro-technology is turning us all into workaholics, that is if you believe what is being reported in today’s media.  What can be done if any of this applies to you?  Have you thought about an answer?  Is it to exercise more?  Take more vacations?  Get another job?  Move to the country?

Enter the possibility of forgetting the to-do lists, faxes, cellular phones and computers.  Enter the possibility of  moving  quickly into the Alpha state, blocking out the clattering, demanding world and letting in Inner Peace.  Enter the possibility of a class that invites you to use your mind to listen to the autonomic system in your body.

We all have natural rhythms we’ve long neglected that would tell us how to recognize fatigue and stress in its early stages.  Ernest Rossi in his book THE 20 MINUTE BREAK names those “Ultradian Rhythms”, and says they occur every 90 to 120 minutes.  Our physical systems run on Activity……..Rest, Activity……….Rest, Activity………Rest, all day long.  The rest period is necessary to catch up on inner housekeeping (involving oxygen, nutrients and cells that need to be replenished) in order that our complex systems can continue to function smoothly.  When we ignore the rest periods (and who among us does not?) the inner housekeeping does not get done.  Result, depletion of betaendorphins which leads first to feelings of fatigue, and eventually psychosomatic illnesses.

Listening to your body’s messages of health or dis-ease can be accomplished  many ways.  The Autogenic Training classes I teach offers a method that is 63 years old and has helped many people.  It is applicable for those troubled with symptoms that are identified as correlates of stress, such as chronic headaches, back pain, insomnia, asthma, generalized anxiety.  Participants learn to attain a heightened awareness of internal body sensations; control of autonomic processes (breathing, heartbeat, coolness, warmth); and deep relaxation. They learn a technique that takes them into a time-suspended waking state, free from tension.  Then they take this home and use it when they want to  rest.  Once finished with the class, participants do want to rest.  All it takes is a little perseverence.  For information on ordering my audio tape, “After The Storm, Self Healing with Autogenic Training”, click on the Mind-Body Connection link to your left.

Songs From The Woods
Late July.  I am sitting on a dock that threatens to tip me into this Montana lake if I lean too heavily on its edge.  One leg in the surprisingly warm water, I lift it to shove back the boat that swings toward me every few minutes.  My dog Oliver lies beside me, half wet, still too citified to leap off the dock with carefree abandon and take a swim.  His panting is somehow reassuring, as it blends with the sounds I hear:  breeze whooshing high in the tall pines, birds chirping and twittering and whistling, a chipmunk scolding.  A lone loon’s raucous cry  overtakes the ever-present sounds of nature.  The wind in trees overhead becomes stereophonic.  The breeze has turned into a gentle wind now, so I no longer see a mirror image of mountains in the water.  Instead, patterns of ruffles turn its surface into zigzags of moving rivulets.  This is the kind of breeze eagles and osprey wait to ride upon.  The Big Sky testifies to the name of every kind of cloud I learned in the high school I attended forty miles away.  That place is a high school no more, but the town remains, still sleepy and still quaint.

There is a splash to my right.  I turn my head in time to see the fish break water for a second time.

The cabin behind me is a rent-free gift from a dear friend.  Its underpinnings come alive with packrats in the middle of the night.  Oliver whined last night to be rescued from their clatter.  Its attic teems with tree bats; several of their young have fallen to the deck during this week I am here.  They are frightening creatures, but only because of our cultural myths.  In reality, they are soft,  and have a hook at the end of their wings, a set of tiny toes on their feet.  They skitter up the rough-hewn stilts in a blind but instinctive attempt to gain access to the attic after their fall.  At first I recoil, then later inspect them and even pull one off Oliver’s nose.  He is mostly confused about this place.  So many smells, so many trees.

Clouds are long stretches of wispy, lazy gauze that bump into sudden puffs of cotton.  I lie back to see what they present:  A polar bear on my right stretches her neck upward.  A peacock and a duck have a conversation along the horizon.  There’s a cougar, ears alert, ready to pounce on a fleeing ram.  As the therapist in me wonders at my seeing only animals, I am reminded of my favorite Peanuts cartoon, where Lucy and Schroeder describe cloud shapes to each other as Prometheus chained to his rock and Minerva springing forth from the head of Jupiter.  When they ask Charlie Brown what he sees, he replies, “I was going to say ‘duckies and horsies’”.    A large spider ambles across my thigh.  A week ago I would have brushed it quickly away.  Now I am merely bemused.  It seems the peace of this place has me in its gentle hand, allowing new pathways of creation and recreation.  Good for my soul.

Time in a Bottle
I stand over an archaic cast iron washtub.  It is divided into two sections.  On the right side is a deep sink; on the left, a washboard. There is no water faucet here, but one end of a sawed-off garden hose lies near my feet.  I look at it, my gaze following its passage across the sunlit brick patio to a faucet thirty steps away.  On a ledge in front of me an empty coffee can is meant to transfer water from the sink to the washboard.  In a pale blue plastic grocery bag beside the can are the soap granules.  I take all this in with one glance. I was not expecting a Maytag; on the other hand, would hot water be too much to ask?
I heave a deep sigh, duck my head under the staircase that threatens – if I’m not careful –  to interrupt this clothes-washing ritual I’m about to begin. If I straighten up too quickly, I risk banging my head on the back side of these stairs leading to second floor apartments. In another time, another country, I might have cursed the engineering plan of placing the laundry room outside and under the stairs.  Today, my task is to wash the clothes.  I decide to keep on task, and leave off the cursing.  My pile of dirty clothes is small.  (I brought only one suitcase.)   I take three items,spread them across the washboard, dip water from the tub to the clothes, sprinkle them with soap, then begin the slow and methodical up-and-down scrubbing motion that will render them clean.  I put them in a plastic pail to await rinsing when the washing phase is complete.  As I continue,  my hands develop a rhythm that echoes a song already in my head.  If I could put time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do…Pick up more clothes.  Dip water from the tub.  Sprinkle the soap.  Scrub, scrub, scrub.  Wring.  Drop in bucket.  Is to save every day till eternity passes away, just to spend them with you…  The  slowness of this chore makes me aware of how these motions are enhancing my senses.  From the corner of my eye I watch a red bird who stares at me from a dead tree.  I feel the hot sun on my bare feet, the chill of the water up to my elbows.  I hear the backyard gossip of four canaries as they call to each other from their cages against the patio walls.  More clothes.  Dip the water.  Sprinkle soap.  Scrub, scrub, scrub.  Wring, wring.   Drop in bucket..  If I could make days last forever, If words could make wishes come true, I’d save every day like a treasure and then, again,  I would spend them with you….The depth of meaning in this ritual only begins to become apparent to me when I get to the next words:  But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them…Now the clothes are ready for rinsing.  I cross the patio past the flower garden, say a few words to the canaries, then turn on the water to fill the now-empty tub.  I almost forget to stuff the drain with the wadded up fabric that serves as a plug.  Crossing again to the faucet, I turn it off so the tub will not run over.  Swish the water over the clothes on the washboard.  Wring, wring, wring.  Shake.  Start a new pile of clean clothes, and when the task is finally complete, grab the bucket, heavy by now, and climb the two stories to the clothesline on the roof .    If I had a box just for wishes and dreams that would never come true….Instinctively I know  that this is one of those rare elongated moments where time waits outside.  I know I will remember and cherish this clothes washing ritual forever.  Thanks, Jim Croce!

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

In a circle of fourteen people, a young man is explaining his difficult life issue, which he says has become a pattern. He has had several episodes of not being able to decide between two women in his life. Beside him, the facilitator questions him about his family history, then tells him to choose four people from among those present to stand in the middle of the circle: someone to represent himself, his grandfather and his grandfather’s two wives. He moves around the inside of the circle, following her instructions.

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

He chooses me to stand in for the second wife. This is the first family constellation where I have been a representative, and I am having uncomfortable feelings. My arms are shivering; I reach my hands up to rub them. I feel a heaviness in my chest, like exhaustion. Jane Peterson, the facilitator, moves beside me and asks, “What is happening for you?” I tell her, at the same time wondering if someone let in some frigid air from a window behind me. I’m not sure what is supposed to happen here. Jane puts her hands on my shoulders, wordlessly guiding me a few steps back to where I am no longer between the couple representing my husband and his first wife. Now facing away from the others, I’m suddenly warm; the heaviness lifted. I look out a window onto a forest scene and feel calm.

Jane’s questions to him had revealed that at a very young age, his grandfather married the love of his life from a nearby Midwest farm. Shortly after their marriage, his wife died, leaving him susceptible to her family’s encouragement that he marry her spinster sister. What followed was a loveless union. After the young man chose the representatives for himself, his grandfather and first wife, the role of the spinster sister-wife became mine.

During the next few minutes, Jane moves around the positioned family members, asking the others what they are experiencing. Then she places the grandfather opposite me. “I was never there for you,” he is instructed to say to me after I am turned to face him. “I loved your sister.” In a strange way I feel relief at hearing this, as if the truth is finally spoken aloud. Jane explains to everyone in attendance that there is loyalty between the sisters, even more so that they were wives of the same man. “You are the first; I am the second,” Jane tells me to say to her. “I release him to you.”

Jane then moves the first wife to face her husband and asks her to say, “I wasn’t able to be with you. Thank you for loving me.” Strangers a few minutes before, these two look at one another, begin to cry, and embrace. A minute and a half pass. Finally the facilitator brings the grandson representative to where he can face his grandfather. She admonishes the grandfather to say to him, “This is my fate, not yours.” Jane asks the client, who has been sitting in the circle of people surrounding this constellation, to take the place of his representative and say, simply, “Thank you,” then bow from the waist. When he looks up from the bow, he takes a deep breath. There are tears in his eyes.

My sensations of cold coincided with the fact that I had at first been positioned between the grandfather and his true love even though she was gone. It was apparent that I did not belong within their tie to each other. When the grandfather found his place in the arms of his first wife, the young man saw his problem with new eyes. His tears indicated how deeply that movement affected him.

Constellations and the Orders of Love
Generational patterns of misfortune and tragedy can be interrupted by family and systemic constellation work. However, most therapists who use constellations in their practices say the process defies definition and must be experienced to be understood. Its model is deceptively simple. The client selects representatives for the members of his/her family and places them in a space in relationship to each other. As soon as these people are “set,” they begin to experience the feelings, thoughts and even sensations of the persons they are standing in for. A real picture of what is going on in the client’s family emerges and with the guidance of an experienced facilitator, a resolution appears. Once representatives are in place, it’s as though a visible inner map is formed of an entangled system. Disruptive love, conflict and trauma in earlier generations that have caused suffering in later generations are dissolved as strangers stand as representatives to play out the constellation. A shift occurs that alleviates the pain. By each family member taking an appropriate and actual place and speaking minimal phrases about the truth of the matter, the grandson’s current destiny is interrupted.

There is a mystical quality apparent in constellations that has been labeled phenomenological by Dr. Bert Hellinger, the originator of this system of inquiry. He is one of Europe’s most innovative and provocative systemic therapists. His eclectic background includes 16 years as a priest working with the Zulu tribes in South Africa, along with many years in Germany as a psychoanalyst and family therapist. Dr. Hellinger, now in his late 70’s, has expanded the family constellation concept to include health and organizational constellations as well as cultural ones. He has worked successfully with the descendants of Nazis and survivors of the holocaust.

His discovery of the “Orders of Love” include simple “laws” which, when thwarted or violated in some way, keep families entangled. Those orders are: 1) there is a need to belong to a system; 2) there needs to be a balance between giving and taking within the system; 3) safety and predictability are needed to elicit order. In his book “Love’s Hidden Symmetry” Hellinger states, “These needs constrain our relationships, and also make them possible, because they both reflect and enable our fundamental human need to relate intimately to others.” Disrespecting a family’s birth order hierarchy or failing to honor a member’s equal right to belong to a system, for instance, are both outside of the Orders of Love. Ignoring or disobeying these Orders creates entanglements that reach across generations, according to Dr. Hellinger.

The orders can be broken unwittingly in different ways: A child or young adult may have died and not been mourned; an extra-marital affair may have been kept secret; previous partners may not have been acknowledged or honored between couples; a child may have been given away for adoption and no longer talked about; babies aborted may not have been acknowledged and mourned. In short, when family secrets are kept, the laws are broken. The pain resulting from such entanglements continues in future generations when those secrets are not brought to light. A constellation will show that a family member incorporates the destiny from a relative into his/her own family, despite the fact that person may have lived two or more generations before.

It takes great courage to experience something without understanding it, according to Dietrich Klinghardt, M.D., PhD., whose Institute of Neurobiology in Bellevue, Washington regularly offers family constellation opportunities. “The constellation and its phenomenology need to be experienced, as what occurs is outside the mental understanding,” he points out. Participants leave constellations with a life-changing, deep understanding of themselves and the forces that govern their relationships.

Renowned German psychoanalyst Dr. Albrecht Mahr has done a long-term follow-up study on people who have experienced their own constellations. The study showed that beneficiaries of the experiences included not only the clients but also the representatives. Dr. Mahr attributes this to “the field,” (a term taken from Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic field. See his book “A New Science of Life”) which is created as the constellation is set up. Dr. Mahr is Director of the Wurtzburg Institute for Systemic Constellation Work and Integral Solutions (ISAIL), and chairman of the International Bert Hellinger Association for Systemic Resolutions, and his work in Germany provides the bridge between family constellations and psychoanalysis.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Hellinger has been attacked as unscientific and not grounded in research. Using the term phenomenological to describe constellations may explain the mystical and magical quality of the results of the work, but it does not often satisfy those in the field who seek measurement.

Although this work is relatively new to the United States, the past five years have seen training groups and constellation weekends spring up in a handful of states across the country. Dr. Klinghardt, for example, has conducted summer retreats on Cortes Island in British Columbia, where participants gather to experience a full week of this work. Jane Peterson, director of Human Systems Institute in Portland, Oregon, conducts year-long facilitator trainings in Portland and around the world.

My own constellations have involved, at various times, my maternal grandparents, my father and his twin, my brother, and my immediate family. After thirty years of working as a family therapist, along the way gleaning from the rich world of psychotherapy each new tool made available, I consider my search to be over for that “one more modality” that will complete my repertoire. My confidence in my craft has soared and I am infinitely more accepting. Most of all, by revealing the ways blockage occurs, constellations have shown me where the love is that holds a family together.

Visits to a medical doctor predominantly involve problems that are stress related. On the other hand, visits to psychotherapists with emotional symptoms are all about psychological stress. When you see a therapist, you are looking to have that stress relieved before it escalates to physical problems. And with the trend in managed care to limit the number of sessions in your therapist’s office, there is seldom time to address what lies beneath those symptoms that could escalate to real physical pain.

Just like taking a pill does not always cure the disease, fixing up old dilemmas by treating their warning signs does not always address the whole person. We Americans have become accustomed to the “quick fix” that is presented by so many segments of our lives. Sadly, this happens with the therapy experience every day.

Thomas Michael Fortel, a teacher and student of yoga at Esalen in Big Sur, California, for 18 years sees body work as a necessary and integral part of therapeutic change. “In order for there to be total and lasting change,” he said, “therapy must address the whole person, not just the thinking process. I recommend that people seeking change approach healing from four directions: Psychotherapy, Yoga, Body-Mind Work, and Spiritual Practice.”

I know that yoga has enhanced my life, so I decided to interview my yoga teacher, Emily Hain, after hearing this. She told me her 15-year practice of yoga saved her from depression. Coupled with psychotherapy, it became a pathway toward self-study that flowed into her everyday activities, allowing her to focus on her body rather than the disturbing thoughts that kept her in a depressive cycle. When I wondered in what ways yoga impacted therapy, she shared the following answers with me:

ML: What is your philosophy about how yoga helps change our lives?

EH: The yoga I practice and teach is about healing the splits inside us, the places of separation and dislocation. In my teaching, I encourage people to invite and welcome all aspects of their being to the practice, not just the ones we deem “good enough” or “perfect enough.”

ML: In what way does yoga make us more receptive to psychotherapy?

EH: Yoga practice has brought me home to my body, something cognitive therapy never was able to accomplish for me. It is a journey from yourself to yourself with no striving. Many of us walk around as if we really don’t exist in physical form. We view our bodies with distaste and distrust, almost like a distant relative who visits once in awhile. And parts of our bodies hold on to that as hurtful emotions and stress.

Further, we spend so much time in our heads. Yoga postures build a bridge of compassion between mind and body so that one can live in some type of congruence. And the magical thing is, therapy actually begins to “take” when that bridge is part of the practice. Therapy helps change our thoughts; yoga brings us back to our bodies.

ML: In what way does that help with the “overwhelm” people feel from such fast-paced lives?

EH: Cultivating the objective and compassionate (to self) attitude takes one away from the “voices in the head” that drive us till we drop. Yoga presents an alternative to life in that fast lane. And because it is about movement and breathing, it brings a different result from, say, sitting in meditation.

ML: How often should yoga be practiced while one is in therapy?

EH: Since it brings comfort in body, mind and spirit, yoga should be practiced every day. Fifteen minutes a day is vastly more beneficial than once a week for an hour. Even that small amount of time helps people “get off the world” and come to know themselves as they really are. Therapy supports that. I think the two are inseparable.

Mary M. Lansing
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist